Books

Course Contents

The course aims at describing, from an experimental point of view, the field of Ambient Intelligence (AmI), outlining its multi-disciplinary nature as well as its technology and application areas. Nowadays, the evolution of consumer electronic technologies, wireless networks, sensors, etc. and the ability to represent and process knowledge and data on a large scale allow the conception of environments able to handle, in an optimal way, energy-related variables, comfort, safety, and user interaction. Such scenarios spur a variety of solutions, ranging from smart homes to smart buildings, from smart cities to smart transportation systems. Special emphasis, on the course, will be devoted to design-related aspects and on the overall hardware-software architecture, besides reviewing the involved technologies. This will enable students to design and realize reusable and interoperable solutions, and to collaboratively build a working prototype of an AmI system, in the laboratory. The course will be held in English and will include some seminars given by industry experts.

Skills: writing system specifications and high-level design of an Ambient Intelligence system, starting from its functional and behavioral requirements. Realization of real-world intelligent environments. Capability of working in group with modern Internet-based collaboration tools. The Python language for rapid prototyping.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of programming languages, such as C or Java. General knowledge of computer networks or communication networks. The course has a strong interdisciplinary nature. The topics are mainly suitable for students enrolled in different degrees in the ICT sector (computer science, electronics, telecommunications), but in the work groups there will be a significant contribution from disciplines more oriented to AmI applications: electric, energy, design, mechanics, etc.

Topics

The course aims at tackling, from a system and multidisciplinary approach, the main enabling technologies and the design methodologies involved in the definition of a complex system such as the ones present in AmI.

The course will cover the following topics, including their theoretical, methodological and practical aspects:

Organization

The course is strongly oriented to laboratory activities. Class lectures are mostly aimed at giving the background needed to develop the group work in the laboratory.

During laboratory hours (at LADISPE): students will work for programming simple intelligent scenarios and user interfaces with real home automation systems. Hands-on and insights about some topics discussed in class. Additional hours will be devoted to assisted group work in the laboratory.

Some class exercises will focus on functional and architectural analysis and design, analysis of user interaction, and design and technology/component selection.

Materials

This section will host learning material: slides, documents, links, videos, etc. used during the course. All slides, examples, exercises, and any other material used in the classroom will be posted here.

create, and properly update, a GitHub Pages website associated to the project repository, by following the instructions available at https://pages.github.com/ (see the "Project site" section); the website must be easy to navigate and well structured.

The project website MUST contain:

the three required deliverables (see below), according to the following (strict!) deadlines;

a video of the project, realized following this guide; the video must be prepared for the exam (see the video in the examples section, below).

01/04 creation of the project website (via GitHub Pages) and deadline for the first deliverable (i.e., vision and goal - see the set of slides "AmI Design Process"); the first deliverable must be clearly identified in the website according to this checklist [PDF] [DOCX];

03/04 check of the first deliverable with the students (in LADISPE);

06/05 deadline for the second deliverable (i.e., system requirements - see the set of slides "AmI Design Process") to be published on the project website; the second deliverable must be clearly identified in the website according to this checklist [PDF] [DOCX];

Example of D2 developed in classroom

08/05 check of the second deliverable with students (in LADISPE);

20/05 deadline for the third deliverable (i.e., system architecture - see the set of slides "AmI Design Process") to be published on the project website; the third deliverable must be clearly identified in the website according to this checklist [PDF] [DOCX];

22/05 check of the third deliverable with the students (in LADISPE)

25/05 final check of the projects (each group is required to give a 5-minute presentation of their project, and the current status of development). The presentation should be prepared by following these guidelines [PDF].

Exam rules

(extracted from the set of slides "Introduction to the course")

The team project (repository and website) must be ready for evaluation three working days before the exam.

YouTube playlist containing all the videos produced by the students enrolled in the 2014 edition of the course.

YouTube playlist containing all the videos produces by the students enrolled in the 2015 edition of the course.

YouTube playlist containing all the videos produces by the students enrolled in the 2015 edition of the course.

Log

This section will host the log of all the lectures, with the topics described in each of them. Please consider that the following information is a tentatitive preview of the course organization, is provided only for helping students organization and planning, and is subject to change without notice.